The Ghost Road (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Pat Barker
- First Published: 1995
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: Early twentieth century
- Setting: Great Britain, France, and Melanesia
- Principal Characters: Billy Prior, Dr. William Rivers, Njiru, Sarah Lumb
- Genres: Long fiction, Historical fiction
- Subjects: Love or romance, Friendship, Doctors, War, Death or dying, World War I, Soldiers
- Locales: France, Great Britain, Pacific Islands
The first two novels in Pat Barker’s trilogy about the British experience in World War I are Regeneration (1991) and The Eye in the Door (1993); the third, The Ghost Road, focuses on Lieutenant Billy Prior, a commoner, and William Rivers, a neurologist who tends soldiers whom the war has torn apart mentally and physically. Through these protagonists, and also through Njiru, the deformed son of a South Seas tribal chief, the novel probes how humans deal with death.
The title The Ghost Road refers to the direction that the dead take in the eyes of the...
[The entire page is 2073 words long]
